Tweed or BWL will experience a melding of flavors in the smilax (greenbriar) I send because it will be commingled with other backyard vines, mostly Lonicera (honeysuckle) and to add a zing that keeps going and going and going, there will be a little Toxicodendron (poison ivy) mixed in. That's one way to tickle your tastebuds! (I found a web site that makes great claims to speed up healing after exposure. I'll bite. I'm not likely to be able to avoid that weedy vine the rest of my life.)

Why not ship all of the smilax you you can spare to Tweed? Not only will it help him with his strange cravings, but it will also ease the pain when he gives birth! Yes! Medical researchers have found that smilax, when eaten in enormous quantities every day, will make a primigravidus give birth at least as easily as if an sharp ax or knife were placed beneath the bed! And if you have recordings of such groups as "The Back Street Boys" or "'N Synch" around send them too!

The tender young shoots of some varieties of smilax are quite good. The type that grows where the Florida Folk Festival is held tastes great. A friend who lives just ten miles or so from my place says his daughter browses their smilax regularly. Unfortunately, what grows on my property tastes like turpentine, and not very good turpentine at that.

BWL, I haven't experimented brewing with my smilax, but tell you what: that's your research project and in the spirit of science I'll be shipping all of mine to you. Just untangle it from the baby opossums and squirrels (no baby dillies around here, yet).

Meanwhile, I have some sea urchin fossils out back that I'll ship directly to MMario. I think he might want to simmer them for a while and come up with a nice sauce for the glyptodon.

Solar flares have diminished and the unusual behavior exhibited by the crew of MOAB has aslo. They are at present, happily studying giant baby mammyjammers.

I myself have noticed strange cravings of late. Must stock up on Chokecherry wine, jelly and yogurt during next planetary piss stop. Rhubarb will do, but chokecherry would keep me docile for some time to come.

Meanwhile back at the ranch.....The Corn-Porn Queen put aside her cobs to gaze at the large ship, entering sky left, that strangly resembled a Mammadillo. The ship made a sound that was something like rubbing your hand on a piece of viraoglaxamine in the pocket of a pair of tweed pants. It sounded like... BuWahahahah..kaff kaff......ack phhttt! BuWahahahah..kaff kaff......ack phhttt! BuWahahahah..kaff kaff......ack phhttt!Slowly hoovering above the Corn-Porn Queen, the hatch of the ship opened and from it fell 3355 jars of caviar and one beluga. The Corn-Porn Queen ran to her pantry quickly, not to hide or take cover, but to grab a jar of chokecherry wine and crackers.

No, it wouldn't be a giant baby armadillo. It would be a baby giant armadillo aka a glyptodon. Sure, they're extinct, but when has that ever bothered anyone around here? Mmario'll probably be barbecuing a couple over at whatever Tavern thread is going on...

Baby armadillos seem to be attracted by the sound of scratching in the dirt. We've had them come check us out while working in garden beds with hand cultivators. Little critters are about 90% blind and can't tell that a human is about fifty times bigger than Mammadillo. All they seem to notice is that something's making armadillo noises.

Solar flareups have caused some personality aberrations in the crew of late.

The usually agreeable Amos snaps at the slightest provocation. He's noticeably edgy and has shaved off his eyebrows for reasons known only to him. He refuses to give any explanation.

Rapaire has transmogridated into a smarmy, yet oddly polite republican! and insists on having four forks of various sizes at mess.

Chief Engineer Bee Dubya, neglects his beloved accordion studies, preferring to conduct impromptu spelling bees instead. He has taken up hamster breeding and keeps two or three hidden in his beard, which only serve to unnerve the contestants, as they sometimes crawl up to the exercise wheel that their master has fashioned into a sort of headgear. It is especially hard on Rapaire during meals and the poor fellow can be heard all over the main deck. "TAKE IT OFF!! FOR CHRIST'S SAKES, WE'RE EATING DINNER HERE!!" and Beezer calmly sups his soup with hamsters spinning merrily away, completely oblivious to the forks. squeek...squeeeek......squeeeeeeek....

And this battered vessel called MOAB ambles onward into the great unknown, leaving only the scent of Tang, Ho-Ho's and a hint of mildew in her wake. The GreatBlack Hole, hitherto uncharted and known only as X-14K looms like a mountain range in the distance.

What new adventures await the crew of the Ark? Gold and riches beyond their wildest dreams....Or something a little more sinister?

Why Amos, I'm simply trying to be polite and show consideration for others. First you accused me (in another thread) of being Republican and now I'm told that I'm "smarmy." That's all right though. I understand that your beady little mind cannot comprehend when someone is following the dictates of Miss Manners and attempting to make life pleasant for others. Perhaps that's just a result of living too long in Southern California amidst Those Kind Of People.

Oh, and Amos, if you want to feel better go do a good deed. I did one of those today also. I was pushing a cart with three small things in it in the grocery store and came across an elderly man with a hand basket putting a flat of 30 eggs in it, and they were rolling out because it would only go in on an angle. I stopped to help rescue his eggs and suggested we trade. I left with the hand basket and he rolled off with the cart, eggs flat and all intact.

So, the big bang yesterday was a nail that went into the tire when I drove over something that stayed on the road so the nail didn't stay in the tire. The leak would have been slower that way. Good thing I got home (and didn't stop anywhere on the way or I'd have made that call to AAA from the grocery store parking lot). It was 10am when they guy got here (pretty quickly after I called) and I think it's already 95 out there. It's supposed to get up to 105 today. Bleahhh.

Well, the week has been consistent, I must stay. I started with a fridge on the fritz and I end with a flat tire. Just went out to move the aforesaid Chevy PU into the garage and it didn't drive right. I heard a big bang when I was on the highway earlier this evening but there was no change in driving it (though I was headed off to a side street, and I drove on boulevards the rest of the way home). This is what I pay AAA for. I'll call early so the burly fellow who arrives to change my tire won't get too hot out there in the driveway.

Beware! This is what you get when you run over pointy headed pseudo-intellectuals and their sidewalk chalk on the highway!

I don't remember that one, but he goes "Ack!" a lot. I visited that thread where someone will eventually get to be the last to post, and put something there just to say something. You just never know what people are going to read into the sound of a cat urping up a furball.

Such interpretive skills the boy has, to take a random uttering on a different thread and assume it was aimed at him or was an invitation? Quote Bill the Cat and he imagines a treatise by Twain, perhaps? (i.e., "eschew surplussage.")

Because BB is from another family, and has escaped his chores at home. If you go out later and find him, perhaps he can teach you a few wiles. No guarantees, though -- remember, "You can't BS an old BSer". And ours is the Mother of them all.